The Value Is Always with the Community
In the midst of a global pandemic shutdown, a group of committed community members continue to fight for their home on the blockchain. They continue to fight for Steem and not just Steem, but for what Steem represents within their communities, their apps, their content, and their tokens. These things were threatened by Justin Sun, possibly without him even realizing it. As he's said, he's just a businessman, doesn't want to deal with politics, and just wants to make money.
It's possible he didn't do proper due diligence to understand what he was purchasing. It's possible Ned mislead him during the sale. I'm a bit curious about that one. If you hire someone for a job, you generally check their references and make a few phone calls, right? Seems odd to me Justin spent millions of dollars to buy something without checking in on the team or the community that creates all the value within what he bought. I have to conclude some form of negligence or maybe this purchase was just so small to him that he doesn't really care.
When the announcements came about Steem apps and tokens moving to Tron without any communication at all with the Steem community, people here were pissed. Many demanded the witnesses take immediate action to protect them from what was seen as an immediate threat, further corroborated by recent actions on Tron. Witnesses took temporary action, hoping to start a conversation. I initiated contact to Justin via email through a friend with the hope this would all be resolved quickly. The initial response was positive, but then Justin and Steemit decided to sybil attack the chain they claim to value.
So where do we go from here?
Justin's so far unwilling to remove his sock puppet witnesses, the community is fighting back by voting up top community witnesses, and we appear to be in a stalemate. It seems Justin doesn't know what he purchased, and he's worried about the value of his investment going down or his stake being frozen again by the witnesses or something worse like what was contemplated last year by some who wanted to fork out the Steemit stake completely or null the keys. I said this then and will repeat it again now:
I will not implement, support, or condone any hard fork that effects the balances, keys, or security of any accounts on the current chain.
I'll go a step further and add this:
Justin Sun, I won't support a soft fork on this chain to freeze the tokens you purchased.
When I deployed 22.2, it was a temporary measure to determine the intentions of the new property owner. It was no easy decision. My intention was to have a call lined up to figure out his intentions as quickly as possible and revert the code after that.
Some disagree and feel entitled to that stake based on commitments made. Some claim there's legal support for that position, and if so, Ned may have some future troubles. Personally, I have no interest in legal battles. I'm an entrepreneur and in my opinion, entitlement is not healthy. Yes, I was mislead for years about the Steemit stake. Yes, I thought things would get better. This past year, I did see improvements when Ned got out of the way (SPS, Hivemind, MIRA, communities on dev, and a working demo of SMTs). But it wasn't enough.
I have to own my mistakes. I didn't continually push against Ned and Steemit for more. Yes, I pushed back at times. I pointed out economic problems. Ultimately, over time, I got complacent. Ned blocked me on Twitter a long time ago and once kicked me out of the steemdev Slack even though I was a consensus witness at the time and that was the primary mechanism for communicating with other witnesses in case of a chain problem (something that has happened many times in the history of this chain). I did push, but it didn't matter. When HF14 came out, we had a new tool with decline_voting_rights_operation to lockdown the Steemit stake. I didn't demand the Steemit accounts implement it. That should have been done. We all should have demanded it. The threat of the ninja mined stake being used against the community was always real. We knew Ned and what he was capable of, so we should have expected something like a botched sale of Steemit. Though not a consensus witness the whole time, this was partly on my watch, and I'm sorry for not doing more.
So where do we go from here?
Justin wants to know his property is safe. I imagine some other witnesses like myself are willing to make commitments not to freeze the stake he bought. Why would they do that? Because what's really important here isn't just some tokens. What's really important here is value. The true value of Steem is the community. All the apps, all the tools, all the various interfaces, all the bloggers, content creators, and friends... all the people. If Justin doesn't understand that, he may find himself alone on a chain that few people are still interested in. It may be a chain filled with accounts extracting from the rewards pool (with not enough downvotes to stop them), no core team members innovating the technology, and few applications willing to support a centrally controlled system. Blockchains are voluntary. They are distributed and decentralized. Consensus is built and secured by those who choose to participate. At any moment, they can leave to a new chain, a new fork, and bring all the value with them.
So the question for Justin Sun is this:
How much do you want to protect the value of your investment?
Will the Steemit purchase forever tarnish his reputation as a businessman? Will he change course, apologize for his attack on this chain and the community supported witnesses, and turn off the sock puppets? Maybe there's a chance some will still support his efforts to bring value to Steem. It's also possible many will want nothing more to do with him and will be happy to move to a new chain which will put the Steemit ninja-mined stake to use for the community.
What happens next on Steem is up to Justin.
The real value will always be controlled by the community because they are the ones who create it. If he wants his investment to return value to him, he must respect the community.
This is what we've all been resonating since day 1. And the fact that, after almost over a month, we're still having to emphasize on this very same thing tells me either these messages aren’t reaching justin or he just doesn’t care. Either way, it shows his negligence towards the community and he sees this as just a business investment, nothing more, nothing less.
In that case there’s no point in hoping he'll do the right thing.
Of course he doesn't care. As long as he's getting a return on the investment, why would he care?
How many more weeks/days of these changing positions and narratives will we have before we settle on a plan to move forward, seems like a lot of tale chasing at the moment
One of the challenges is defining "we."
Distributed, decentralized communities have many different "we"s. Some want to fork to a new chain. Others want to stay and work it out. Some want to integrate tightly with Tron and pump the price with hype.
The biggest challenge we face as a community is defining "we" and what "we" want.
Individuals have intention. Groups just have emergent properties of individual intention.
I believe that conversation like this - tone, manner, and content - would help us move forward to make any kind of agreement.
In particular, I applaud that you declared that you won't support forking other's assets.
Albeit not very large, you have my witness vote now. And I would recommend you as a witness who may represent the community.
One question: what do you mean by your question to Justin? Are you asking him that what he may offer to reach a compromise?
It's clear what he needs to do: stop sybil attacking the network and shut down his sock puppets. Apologize to the community and witnesses for his actions and accusations. Come up with a reasonable plan for the Steemit stake where everyone benefits that acknowledges the original intent of that stake. That's all assuming he wants some value out of his investment. Otherwise he may find himself alone on a chain few care about anymore.
What you wrote is bascially what 22.2 witnesses' demand(or request), while not proposing anything what witnesses may offer or concede. It seems that you do not want to make a deal, and I assume that fork would be inevitable.
What do witnesses owe Justin? He bought something he didn't understand. He came here and attacked this chain.
We didn't show up to the TRON ecosystem and make demands of it.
What, if anything, should witnesses give Justin and why?
You already did the first step that stating you won't freeze accounts. I believe that 22.2 witnesses also apologize that they made a mistake by freezing someone's asset behind the curtain, instead of continuously saying that it was "reversable" and "preemptive".
I don't think the witnesses (myself included) have anything to apologize for. We acted quickly to try and protect the chain from the very fate it's under right now. The community token holders supported our actions and voted out witnesses who didn't. It was temporary, reversible, and preemptive. To say otherwise would not be accurate.
Yes, it was done quickly and "behind the scenes" as you say, though it did include many large stake holders, application developers, and witnesses who all believed immediate action was required.
I understand that we view the situation differently. "Temporary", "reversible", and "preemptive" are what the "performers" think, and I believe that who got affected or who did not participate may view it very differently.
As I clearly understand your logic, I do not think we need further discussion regarding this.
I appreciate your time and effort again.
Thanks. I wish I understood your logic clearly also. I seem to be missing something.
Thanks for trying to explain it to me though.
I think the fundamental difference is in past experience - while I started steemit 2 yrs ago(which is not a short time), I haven't had participated in the governance system so my view is basically what an outsider would think.
On the other hand, 22.2 witnesses and supporters tend to be the active members who participated in the steem governance, so insiders' view and maybe also emotionally attached.
That being said, at the same time I still do not understand/agree with some of what Justin does/says. I guess again, maybe due to the fundamental difference in past experience.
well said, but Justin just doesn't seem to be a very trustful guy. At least his new representative Dan made me feel more optimistic in the latest town hall meeting, but he also said that he is only one voice and that he doesn't know if Justin will listen to him... I made a somewhat more pessimistic post here, which I hope won't happen
It will be interesting to see how long this stalemate can be maintained. Justin could probably buy more Steem. It seems to hang on what value the platform has for him. He's playing games by shifting delegation around. Maybe that is to get some more witnesses on his side. Didn't Steemhunt say they were interested in his proposed changes? For some reason one of the main Steemhunt guys has blocked me on Steem and Twitter. Not sure what prompted that. The current crypto market slump adds a further twist to matters.
I'm not sure about Steemhunt, but it does appear Justin is powering up more Steem.
Well we have to keep people aware of what he's doing. I buy small amounts, but can't really go for big chunks for now even with the low price.
To me the whole thing just doesn't make sense. justin seems to have a habit of burning the bridges that he has bought but there must be a bigger picture. I am wondering does the accusation of Bittorent, Steemit and Opera (Edit Being listed on Opera) form some sort of jigsaw puzzles to create something bigger? Like a sudo decentralised file steaming network with monetization. Just a thought. I am sure he is not as stupid as he paints himself to be and understanding his motivations should give us an idea of what he wants steemit for and why he is acting in the way he does.
Just wanted to clear things up, Tron did not acquire Opera, they were listed on it.
Thank you for this correction, I will edit to reflect.
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For the 3 years I've been on Steem, I've considered the witnesses the real leaders, not whoever was at Steemit Inc.
It's unfortunate that the development of Steem and Steemit were so closely tied together. Maybe now is an even better opportunity to further distinctify the two.
I agree. For the first time ever, Steem (or whatever comes out of it) has the opportunity to be lead by the community without a central authority (via stake or influence or otherwise) calling the shots.
It's not an investment on STEEM as you now are starting to discover. He just needs to create value for TRON. So on his strategy www.steemit.com is an onboard vehicle. If steemit.com creates in the near term more value for TRON than what he invested, it's ok for J.S. And he bought at a very low price.
He just needs to deploy an easy mechanism to onboard current STEEM accounts into TRON, that's all he needs.
At this point it is better to think on how to develop a better protocol for a newsteem when the hard-fork takes place
It's not that simple though. If Steemit gets converted to a word-press site and the blockchain goes away entirely, sure, he might convert some, but my hunch is much of the value will transition elsewhere and it would harm TRON more than help.
Great writing Luke.
Nice to see you are looking at your self as well in the historic terms of events.
Looking back at it now, knowing Ned, it was almost inevitable something like this will happen and actions should be taken earlier.
But no going back now, and lets see what will come out of this.
Thanks. I know there are many witnesses outside of consensus who are justifiably very upset at those who are in consensus and have been for some time. I hope we get passed this stalemate so those witnesses can be represented by the community and given a chance to lead as well. Early on, I never wanted to be a witness. I prefer software over running hardware, but I was asked repeatedly to step up and run a node people can trust, so I did. I think there are others more qualified due to their C++ experience, their network infrastructure experience, and more, but I'm still here running a node because this is my home on the blockchain, and I was asked to support it. Sometimes the best technically qualified people work well with computer systems and networks but not so well with people and I think a witness position requires both. That said, there have certainly been times during all this that I've been tempted to do as @smooth did and shut down to let others work it out.
Well I'm glad you are still around :)
The problem is both side can't trust each other. I suggest a hard fork with consensus:
Appreciate hearing this thoughtful commentary @lukestokes.
I have always been a believer in measured responses and negotiation to see if we can't address as many people's needs as possible. But I am also loath to "drown" in service of keeping an even keel at all times.
The evidence I have seen is that Justin really doesn't care about anything other than making a quick buck. As @v4vapid outlined in a recent post, he appears to be what the investing world calls a "Vulture Capitalist."
There's an old truism that goes something like this: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."
Justin has already shown the world — through a trail of actions, going back to leveraging Ripple to create Tron, to using "reserved" stake to control witnesses on other blockchains — who he is. Whereas seeking balance and peaceful resolutions is a noble cause, there comes a time where we must consider whether we are asking a leopard to change its spots.
While everyone has been up in arms, I have been trying to keep my eye on the flow of Steem, particularly from/on exchanges... and you know all about this, given the reports you create. I find it noteworthy — and worrisome — that the consistent jump in Steem volume on Bittrex corresponds not most accurately with the Feb. 14th announcements, nor with the 22.2 softfork, nor with the 22.5 takeover... but with the moment it became clear that our consensus witnesses had retaken "veto power," as it were.
I suppose you could argue that the volume jump is related to lacking liquidity on Binance and Huobi... but I sense that would be just a smoke screen, because the volume should have dropped once those exchanges had some liquidity again. I hasn't. Which suggests to me that JS is just amassing Steem ahead of planning a massive powerup to unseat the consensus witnesses, followed by another fork that will effectively centralize Steem. In effect, the stalemate will have bought him enough time for his developers to substantially alter the code in key ways that would render everyone currently influential "impotent" at the flip of a switch.
Essentially, JS would become that proverbial "dictatorial Redditor" who bans and shadowbans anyone who disagrees with him. Such fun! No Moon!
At this point, I am beginning to see the split Dan (blocktrades) just posted about as the most positive and hopeful (or "least shitty?") possible way forward. Justin will still have Steem, but the only effective feather in his TRON cap will be yet another blockchain app with very few users.
I grant you, my perception is also tainted by a 20-year history with venues that compensate content creators for their contributions. All of the ones I've known (50+ and counting) have failed... and I'm sad to say (keeping in mind that generalizations are dangerous, yet often founded on fact) that the "key ingredient" in those failures has been... "domination" and community takeovers by certain cultural segments from South-East Asia where winning and making money/succeeding at any cost supercedes right action. There, I said it.
Sorry to have "blogged on your blog" again... stay healthy!
Good thoughts even the “politically incorrect” one. Anyway we’re leaving and I see that you’re coming too. I’ve already packed!
And would any value be there? I don't think so, but maybe I'm wrong since some people prefer centralization over decentralization. I agree, a new chain may be the best way to go. I hinted that a bit in this post from last night, but didn't want to come out in front of a larger announcement.
You make a very important (though delicate) point that some of the challenges we face as a community relate to much larger ideological differences regarding centralized vs. decentralized governance, hierarchy, and control.
Thanks for sharing @lukestokes.
I would much appreciate you reading (and investigating further) my (very relevant to governance of the existing or a new Steem chain) post of today: https://steempeak.com/hive-114105/@atma.love/reclaiming-our-sovereignty-during-these-chaotic-times
Namaste
your Steem Servant
Atma
Thanks for sharing👍
The only answer is the hard fork, and we move toward this new sidechain Hive!
Es bueno saber eso. Inspira confianzay lealtad a los principios, no solo éticos, sino a los intereses de la comunidad en general.
I'm not any kind of anarchist or voluntarist, so I have a different perspective.
It seems to me that "private property" is an inaccurate description of whatever crypto-assets are supposed to be.
Suppose you own a forest surrounding a mountain, and I own the mountain itself. I could reasonably ask (or require) you to allow me an easement to that mountain, especially if there's no other way for me to get to my property. Perhaps, if I wished to start a loud, polluting mining operation, demanding a large road for trucks and heavy equipment to go through the forest, we would have to negotiate. But there is someone real--something you or I cannot dispute--on which the whole situation is based. There is a mountain, which I own. There is possibly ore in the mountain. You own the forest around it.
But suppose you own a forest around a large but entirely dead clearing. I say that, no, the clearing is not empty, there is a giant mountain in it (only visible to the worthy) that has many castles, dragons, waterfalls, etc. Since this is such an amazing mountain, I require you to verbally acknowledge its existence to maintain its property values, offer easements to those going to the mystical yet invisible waterfalls, and contribute to castle maintenance and the Space Witch Defense Fund--for Space Witches, you see, are the natural enemy of the dragon, and without dragons we would all be star-hexed.
In both of these scenarios there is someone that might be called private property. One of them, I hope, you will also find absurd.
Crypto is closer to the second scenario than the first--all our digital assets are merely numbers spread throughout the world. To say that such assets are "private property" and miners, or witnesses, or whatevers, must protect them by spending computational resources and other capital is like saying the treasures of the invisible mountain must be protected from the space witches, ergo someone must pay the dragon-riders. In fact, if code is speech, which sounds like a cool slogan, then any crypto-asset would result in compelled speech under this scheme.
The alternative--which I suspect you would agree with-is that, no, miners and witnesses and whatevers and all the other forms of dragon-rider are not compelled to do jack squat; they simply participate in this whole scheme voluntarily. Either for remuneration, or perhaps they really hate space witches. But if that's the case, then what exactly are blockchain assets? They do not merely only have value if other people say they do, but even exist in the first place only because other people say they do, and would all cease to exist the moment those other people quit.
Since when does the natural right to private property depend on other's running a certain version of software on their computer as opposed to another? I myself do not believe in an absolute right to private property--the Universal Destination of Goods is a superior principle, to which private property must bow in service. But that makes this situation all the more ridiculous, because if all the computational power in the world must be dragged off for some massive task, then of course we would have to stop mining and witnessing and whatevering to accommodate this greater need.
St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of the distinction between natural and artificial wealth. Natural wealth is anything that is of intrinsic use: horses, houses, and heads of cabbage. Artificial wealth is only that which has value sheerly because we say it has value. Cryptocurrencies, like all currencies, fall more into the category of artificial wealth. After all, you can't eat a bitcoin, fuel your car with ether, or paper the wall with steem.
Which comes back to the original point: crypto-assets have value in that people say they do. Are we required to say so? After all, Binance would be a far greater tyrant than any cabal of sybils, in allowing some assets to be valued higher and others lower, then allowing those numbers to change. If I dent your car and it costs you $300 to fix, then I am to blame. If I dump a whale-lot of crypto, and cause everyone's wallets to drop an average of $300, am I responsible in the slightest?
And yet--if I steal $300 from all y'all, I definitely am.
The only answer to this paradox, I believe, is that there some more subtle category than "private property" which applies to crypto-assets.
You touched on some things I've been thinking about before.
As to Universal Destination of Goods, that rubs me the wrong way a bit... it opens the door for religious or dogmatic statist control of everything "for the greater good" (for whoever gets to control that definition). Historically... I'm not a fan of that approach.
I wish he would apologize and turn off the sock puppets but I believe he has already done enough damage to reverse that. Sadly, his Rep is really tarnished and could be for a very long while
Congratulations @lukestokes!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:
No, it isn't. Like me, most reasonable folks have realized that even paying attention to the rhetoric of liars is a waste of time.
This community will determine it's own fate, regardless of what oligarchs intend.
Sun is no longer relevant, and since he will not relinquish his governance efforts, he is taking Steem down the drain with him. I'm not circling that drain.
I'm moving on. Hive is coming, and you may react, or act proactively, as you prefer. The issues that have not been resolved by prior governance of Steem, some of which you pointed out, and others you have not, will either be resolved on Hive, or Hive will fail too.
We'll see.
Either way, Sun capturing Stinc's stake was only the revelation of the issue that has always doomed Steem, and that issue is the weighting of massive stakes on governance, which I have noted previously is not just the size of mined stake, but the weight it's accorded influencing governance. You don't even mention that issue here, and, sadly, it's probably too late to deal with that issue now that Steem has reached this pass.
Thanks for your service.
I think you missed my point. "What happens next on Steem."
Justin, by his actions, may well destroy Steem. Hive (or something like it) may rise from the ashes like a phoenix. The community is where the value is and that doesn't have to be Steem.
It's both. @blocktrades and others who are smart like him are still not convinced a 1t1v approach solves these problems. Some argue it makes them worse. I've seen arguments on both sides, and I haven't yet made up my mind. The percentage of total active voting tokens matters either way.
I didn't miss your point. Sun is immaterial. He's there, and we're leaving because of it, and that is what matters.
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